1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a configuration method for a sound collection system that uses a plurality of terminals, such as smartphones, as microphones for a meeting and to a server apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A remote meeting (or a video teleconference) in which the sound of utterances of participants in a meeting is collected and is transmitted to another meeting at a remote place has been held from a long time ago. Also, systems for automatically creating minutes by collecting the sound of utterances in a meeting and performing speech recognition thereon have been long known, and various approaches have been conceived.
In many of those systems, dedicated devices are used, and typically, meeting rooms in which such devices are installed are used. Such systems, therefore, are not readily available in typical meeting rooms in which dedicated devices are not installed.
In recent years, a large number of people have been using smartphones on a daily basis. Since smartphones are general-purpose computers that can connect to a network on their own, that can run external application programs, and that have cameras and microphones, there is a growing tendency to actively utilize the smartphone for various purposes.
In the so-called web meeting system in the remote meeting systems, smartphones are also increasingly used as terminals. An idea of connecting smartphones to a remote meeting system and using the microphones of the smartphones to collect all utterances of participants has been disclosed, as in URL: http://labevent.ecl.ntt.co.jp/forum2014/elements/pdf_jpn/V-1_j.pdf, (hereinafter referred to as “Non-Patent Document 1”).